Date:         Mon, 11 Sep 2006 22:14:19 -0400
Reply-To:     Richard Ristow <wrristow@mindspring.com>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Richard Ristow <wrristow@mindspring.com>
Subject:      Re: using ANY in select if
Comments: To: "Baglioni, Tony" <ajb2t@comm.virginia.edu>
In-Reply-To:  <8AE883D86DBAAF4E9924E984A06927F20315D1B5@mcintire6.comm.vi
              rginia.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 10:38 AM 9/11/2006, Baglioni, Tony wrote:

>Can someone please give me an example of the use of ANY within the
>select if command?  I have a list of difference variables and I want
>to select cases where the difference is not zero.  Let me clarify.  I
>want to avoid saying
>
>SELECT IF (var1 ne 0 or var2 ne 0 or var3 ne 0 ... or var22 ne 0).

ANY isn't well suited, as you've noticed: It does an 'or' of a set of
equality comparisons; you want an 'or' of a set of inequality
comparisons (any value is not zero).

Jan Spousta's is a very good 'cute' solution - 'cute', meaning that it
does the job nicely, but in a way that wouldn't strike one immediately
from the requirement. I'd probably use it.

You can at least write the direct logic more easily with a DO REPEAT.
Untested:

COMPUTE #TAKE_IT = 0.
DO REPEAT TEST_VAL = var1 TO var22.
.  IF (TEST_VAL NE 0) #TAKE_IT = 1.
END REPEAT.
SELECT IF #TAKE_IT EQ 1.